Pair a Wall Display

A paired display is a TV or monitor that shows a board of your rooms all day with nobody signed in to it. You pair it once: the screen shows a code, and you enter that code on your phone or computer. From then on the screen shows its board and keeps it up to date by itself. Nobody can use it to open anything else in Theator.

Who Is This For?

• Admins and Facility Admins who set up wall screens, create boards and manage paired displays
• Clinical Engineers and hospital IT staff who install the screen and the computer that drives it

Who Can Do What

Facility Admins, and Clinical Engineers assigned to one site, see and pair only that site's boards. Clinical Engineers can't open User Management, so an Admin or a Facility Admin creates the board first. Demo accounts can't pair displays.

What You Need

Your hospital supplies three things for each paired display: a screen, a small computer to drive it, and a place to put it.

A screen

• An LCD TV or monitor. For a screen that stays on all day, choose LCD over OLED. Parts of a board stay in the same place for hours, and an OLED panel can keep a faint image of them (burn-in).
• Your hospital's power schedule, if it has one. If your screens are turned off at night on a schedule, keep that schedule. The page keeps running while the panel is off, so the board is current when the screen comes back on.

A small computer with a kiosk browser

• A mini-PC or a compute stick connected to the screen, running Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge in kiosk (full-screen) mode.
• Start on the display page. Set the browser to open https://app.theator.io/display when it starts, so the screen comes back by itself after a restart or a power cut.
• A persistent browser profile. The browser keeps the screen's pairing in its own storage. A guest or incognito profile, or a kiosk tool that clears browser data on every restart, forgets the pairing each time, and you would have to pair the screen again every morning. When the browser can't keep the pairing, the screen says "This browser forgets its pairing on restart. Use a persistent kiosk profile."
• An internet connection that can open https://app.theator.io.

Digital-signage players, casting devices, and signage systems that show web pages inside their own page are not supported. Use a kiosk browser instead.

A place for the screen

Put the screen where the people who use the board can see it, such as the OR desk or the biomed office. If the board shows surgeon names or procedures, the screen must be in a staff-only area where patients and visitors can't see it. Theator asks you to confirm this when you save the board and when you pair the screen.

Step 1: Create a Board

A board is the list of rooms a paired display shows on the Rooms › Schedule timeline, in the order you choose. You need a board before you can pair a screen, and several screens can show the same board.

1. In the left sidebar, open Admin tools > User Management, or go to https://app.theator.io/organization/user-management.
2. Open the Displays tab. Under Boards, click Create board.
3. Under Name, name the board, for example "Main OR".
4. Under Rooms, click Add rooms and choose the rooms, or choose a list under Copy from a room list. Drag the rooms into the order the screen should show them in.
5. Under Timeline, choose 3 h back, 4 h ahead or Whole day. The screen shows each room's day so far and what comes next.
6. Choose Surgeon names (Hidden, Initials or Last name) and Procedure (Hidden or Shown). Both start as Hidden. Patients are never shown. If an option is greyed out, your organization's display privacy setting doesn't allow it.
7. Choose the Page time (15 s, 30 s or 60 s). When the rooms don't fit on one screen, the screen shows them a page at a time and moves to the next page after this time.
8. Under Rooms with no cases today, keep Show ticked to keep those rooms on the board, or clear it to leave them out.
9. If the board shows surgeon names or procedures, tick "I confirm this screen is in a staff-only area where patients and visitors can't see it."
10. Click Save board.

To change a board later, click it in the Boards list, make your changes and click Save board. Every screen that shows the board picks up the change without being paired again.

Step 2: Show the Code on the Screen

1. On the screen's computer, open https://app.theator.io/display.
2. The screen shows Pair this screen, a 6-character code such as 4F7-K2Q, a QR code, and the time the code expires.

A code lasts 10 minutes, and then a new one appears. If you reload the page before then, the screen shows the same code again. Until it is paired, the screen shows nothing about your organization or your patients.

Step 3: Pair the Screen from Your Phone

Stand in front of the screen while you pair it.

1. Scan the QR code on the screen with your phone. You can also go to https://app.theator.io/pair, or click Pair a display on the Displays tab. If Theator asks you to sign in, the code is kept.
2. On the Pair a display page, check Code on the screen. Scanning the QR code fills it in. If you type it, lower case and the dash are both fine.
3. Under the code, Theator shows where the code came from, for example "Requested 2 min ago by Chrome on Windows · on a different network than you". Check that this matches the screen in front of you.
4. Under Board, choose the board this screen should show. If there is none yet, click Create a board.
5. Under Display name, name the place, for example "Main OR desk TV". Theator doesn't accept a name that looks like a person's name.
6. If the board shows surgeon names or procedures, tick "I confirm this screen is in a staff-only area where patients and visitors can't see it."
7. If the code came from a different network than yours, tick "I can see this screen, and the code on it matches." This is common when your phone is on mobile data.
8. Click Pair.

Theator confirms, for example "Paired. Main OR desk TV will start showing Main OR shortly.", and the screen switches to its board within a few seconds. Click Pair another display to pair the next screen, or Back to Displays to see the list.

Important: Only pair a screen you can see in front of you. Someone could open the display page on their own computer, then ask you by email or phone to pair "the new desk TV" with the code they see. Pairing that code would show your board on their computer. Never pair a code that someone sends you.

What a Paired Display Shows

• The board's rooms, in the board's order, on the Rooms › Schedule timeline.
• Surgeon names and procedures only if the board shows them, and never more than your organization's display privacy setting allows. Patient names are never shown.
• No video, no menus and no buttons. Nothing on the screen can be clicked.

A paired display has no Theator account and never signs out. It stays paired until someone unpairs it, or until Theator removes it after 14 days without contact.

Manage Paired Displays

Open Admin tools > User Management and the Displays tab. Under Paired displays, each screen shows its Display name, its Board, when it was Last seen and when it was Paired.

The 14 days count from the last time the screen contacted Theator, or from when it was paired if it never did. A screen that stays off for longer, for example during a holiday shutdown, has to be paired again when it comes back. Removed and unpaired screens stay on the list as a record.

Rename a display

Click Rename next to the display, change Display name, and click Save. Name the place, like "Main OR desk TV".

Unpair a display

Click Unpair next to the display, then confirm. The screen stops showing its board within about 30 seconds, shows "This screen was unpaired", and shows a new code so that it can be paired again.

Show a different board on a screen

A paired display always shows the board it was paired with. To show another board on the same screen, unpair it, then pair it again with the new code on the screen and choose the other board.

If you delete a board, its screens stay paired but show "This display's board was deleted." The Board column of the list reads Board deleted. Unpair those screens and pair them again with another board.

Troubleshooting

The screen asks to be paired again after every restart. The browser isn't keeping the pairing. Switch the kiosk browser to a persistent profile: not a guest or incognito profile, and with no setting that clears browser data on restart. Then pair the screen again. Its old entry on the list stops being seen and is removed after 14 days, or you can unpair it now.

"That code is not valid or has expired. Check the screen for the current code." The code was mistyped, or the screen has moved on to a new one. Enter the code the screen shows now.

"Too many attempts. Try again in a few minutes." After 5 wrong codes in 10 minutes, Theator pauses pairing for your account. Wait a few minutes, then enter the code the screen shows now.

The screen says "This screen asked for too many codes. Wait a few minutes, then reload." The screen asked for new codes too often, for example because it was reloaded many times in a row. Wait a few minutes, then reload the page.

The screen says "This screen was removed after 14 days without contact." The screen was off or disconnected for 14 days. Pair it again with the new code it shows.

"Paired displays aren't available yet. Contact Theator support." Paired displays aren't set up for your organization yet. Contact Theator support.

I can't find the Displays tab. The Displays tab is shown to Admins and Facility Admins. Clinical Engineers can pair a screen at https://app.theator.io/pair with an existing board, but can't create boards or manage paired displays.

What's Next?

• Theator Permissions Overview — What each role can see and do
• Managing Your Organization — Invite users and change roles in User Management
• Intro to Rooms Monitoring — Check room and unit status in System > Monitoring